Yellow Light
by historicallylate
Summary: On a certain morning, Isobel Crawley has a lot to think about. Set in/after S05E04. One-shot; vignette.


**A/N:** _This was a style exercise for another story & to satisfy my craving for vignettes. It's a bit of a mishmash (clearly I need more practice!), but thought to post it anyways. First thing for DA, thanks for taking the time to read. I appreciate all reviews, if you have the time._

* * *

><p><strong>Yellow Light<strong>

Morning after, opening much like all the May mornings that far, but for one difference: the remaining night moistness sheds rapidly into the gentle whispered promises of the coming day. The outside seemed to agree with the different flutter in Isobel Crawley's insides as, in want of answers, she took to walking in crispy morning garden to clear the turmoil in her.

Yesterday, Isobel Crawley, in all her precious poise, had been left utterly baffled. It had been an easy task, achieved with talk of love, with self-aware confessions. Evidently things had changed, not only in the world but in her. Formerly naive and snobbish, she mistook having manners for having no soul. Just like the delicate fragrances of the blossoming baby's breaths jumping the gun, the nuances of the upper class's lives were starting to push through her ignorance.

The details the inexperienced — and she was mature enough to call herself that — Mrs. Crawley, the mother of the newly found heir, had overlooked in her wittering and brash manner were starting to bloom in the life of Isobel Crawley, the woman fit to marry a Lord. The association with Lords and Ladies nevermore stroke her as dull and rigid. Sometimes she was shown praisable ability for independent thought, even rarely still the capability to laugh at oneself.

Thus, the promise to think about it was made surprisingly easy. She could not not think about it. Gone are the days when she feels inadequate and stifled. Gone are the days where she feels like the last outpost against stuffy manners, against undeserved privileges. She is starting to value the heritage, the cold weight of history, the romance of ancestral trees made forever present in oils twice the size of the living specimens.

Yet, she cannot shake her lowly roots. Still it is the majesticity of nature what she reveres: the displays of conflict and symphony. Mornings like these impress her, but mornings like these also confuse her. The cold light's flirt with the Summer breezes, the yellow warmth's dallies with unforgiving Northern winds are enough to make one wish for one or the other — the prickly bites of morning frost or the gentle caresses of lazy afternoon Sun.

She suspects it is that practicality of hers, the tendency to bifurcate, what attracts him. The plain novelty of it. Unkindly, she thinks it might even be the male quest for feeling young. She is straight-forward, opinionated and not too far removed from being an eligible match. Everyone is a cousin of someone, and after the marriage nobody cares enough whose — not at their age.

Like for the sparrows sliding through the shades of yellow, there was but one thing to matter: the feeling taking flight. Was that why she thought more; the mention of 'love' superseding the plain question? When reckless, she likes to think herself as being courted. The early morning calls in the abating mist, the minute laughters he gifts as some secret he doesn't dare to share but does despite himself.

And would things have changed if she had heard the word from Richard, as unlikely as it might have been, even prompted?

To him she was not novel; she still isn't. She is the comfortable woollen nurse's uniform brushing past him in narrow corridors. To him, she is the woman his parents wanted him to marry — while to His Lordship (she almost laughs at the term — what would happen if she called him Her Lordship?) she is the woman for whom his parents would have disowned him.

Maybe it is the realisation of this thought, of the risk and vulnerability to which he subjects himself, that makes her think fondly of him. They are both brave, in unsuspected ways. To be asked for a moment to consider was not asking too much at all. For a moment she knows what to say — and what she never should.

For another, she laments the consequences of one answer — the loss of the early morning gardening heading the list — until she knows the rules will be made theirs. His grounds are vast, the gardener only a man; the need for excentricity in the upper classes not so much a cliché than fact. He is modern, he is open-minded — as evidenced by his asking; he will allow his wife every opportunity.

She will be brought up as gently as her prized petunias lovingly breaking the ground, in the same fleeting light that strokes the one word flashing in her mind. A more poetic person would draw parallels with new beginnings and proposals. Isobel's mind draw parallels with intermittent bouts of unclarity and wonder.

For a question received in unsuspecting shadow, she is finding the answer, under the yellow light.


End file.
